Part X of the Repainting my 3rd Edition Wood Elf Force- Elven Lords

While I haven't blogged about it lately, I have been diligently working on my 3rd Edition Wood Elf force since Spring. So much so that even though I'm going to post about a single unit today, my Elven Lords cavalry unit- it's actually not the only one complete.

In order, I have finished the following which will be in the next blog entry(ies)?

• Beastmasters (just the animals and I had to get creative, those guys go for $$$).
• Another treeman
• Wizards, 1 on foot and 2 mounted. 
• 2nd Wardancer unit of 10
• Army Standard Bearer
• Bears Monstrous Host
• A Shape Changer- a Werebear
• Another unit of 20 archers!
• Baggage! Only three elves, but I need to find more "elf villager" types anyways.

In short, my Wood Elf army is pretty much complete outside of some Falconer ideas which I may or may not get to and a unit of eight Glade Runners (scouts) made from left over minis from Archer units. Along with that I need to get the actual beast master elves as well for the beastmaster units. If I had to add up the points off the top of my head, its at least 5,000, especially with the dragon. Not bad for a force that started as allies for my Empire army and was maybe around 800 points back then.

But onward to the meat of the post, the Elven Lords which gives this blurb from the Warhammer Armies book:
The Lords of Elven communities and their noble retainers ride magnificent warhorses into battle. Wood elves favor roan and dappled horses, plaiting their mains and ornamenting their bridles with hair-plumes and jewels. 


Like Mike McVey in White Dwarf with his Elven Lord unit featured in White Dwarf #141 I didn't want to have too uniform of an appearance, but I didnt vary them as much as he did. Because of this and the fact that I wanted the flexibility to field them as Wood Riders if I so chose I kept them uniform to the rest of the army. In my imagining of them I take it to be perhaps a single Elven Lord with his retainers, nine in number rather than 10 individual lords.

I decided to keep the horses rustic looking, but uniform with their manes and tails. I didnt want to go all gray as to me this seems more like High Elf steeds so I went with more brown horses. Green and white for the bridles with minor variations on the white patterns. Their bases continue with the autumnal turf to convey middle of the woods late in the year feel that the rest of the army has.

Now some notes on the composition of the unit itself:

• The champion of the unit: I've disliked the mini since I bought it (around 1990) as I recall. Not sure why, but I think something in the pose struck me as odd. Finally, however he came together with a paint job I liked this time around.
• The back row of the unit is of special note after a single purchase off eBay I was able to round out the unit, but they were not cheap. I had never seen the rider with the mask attached to the helm before and it struck me as odd.
• The elf in the front rank with the bow spent a number of years atop a cockatrice for my 4th/5th edition High Elf Army. I debated swapping him out but left him. If I can find some musical instrument "rammage" it will go to him.
• Several of the elves served as Dragonkin mounted on various dragons for my 3rd Edition High Elf Army when it functioned as a purely dragon force. Real quick- if you wanted, a High Elf player could field an entire army of nothing but dragons... more on that in a post at a later point. Fortunately I kept all the metal horses.
• The standard bearer I got off of a eBay seller who I do business with quite often. Sometimes pricey, but always reliable. The mini was in rough shape and gobs of paint which I stripped down, primed, painted. The flag itself is inspired from Dark Ages England and I tried to convey an Anglo-Saxon type feel to it while staying with the colors and scheme of the army.

One thing of note is white spiral pattern on the shields... for some reason on these guys it it was a bit wavier then on the other units. Not sure why. I was also short a few shields so I had to use some later edition ones...

Despite all this the unit came out fairly well and are a nice fit for the elites of the army. They did take a bit longer than I expected however.

Next up, as I mentioned and possibly a line on some minis that can stand in for Falconers but that's low on the priority list.. ok so if you ask, I'm looking for Bob Olley Half Elves from the Ironclaw line in the late 1980s. They are not cheap however when they come up on eBay and the half elf with the spear can't be used for the Falconer unit itself.

The next post on the Wood Elf force me be a "catch-all" as i mentioned above encompassing teh last units as well as my thoughts on the army, what went well and what I would change with hindsight.

Realms of Chaos- The Lost and the Damned

Apologies in advance in reading this, I've been working on this post in an off again on again fashion for quite some time so it jumps around and covers a lot of ground.

The Lost and the Damned. Unlike my copy of Slaves to Darkness which I've had forever, my copy of Lost and the Damned is one I've had for...never. I've read through a friends copy numerous times and well as "ahem" other means, but I've largely been very unlucky on the purchase of this one. In other words I've missed out on this on eBay multiple auctions. In fact I've been about as unlucky on it as the quest for the Elven Attack Chariot (which I've been able to secure since I've blogged about it).

"Papa Nurgle looks so plump and full of puss!"

For some reason in terms of collecting this rule book it is very akin to the Deities and Demigods with the Cthulhu and Melnibone mythos for AD&D. In the collecting world (or at least the selling side) people got the idea that is "rare". In fact, neither book is really that rare, but people think they are and thus the price is higher than it might otherwise be. Typically, the Lost and the Damned sells for $150-300 on eBay. So my plan to acquire it? Wait it out and get it eventually. What eBay has taught me over the years that if one is patient you'll eventually get what you are looking for at teh right price. I might need to continue to be patient as its going for $150-300 on eBay and around $350 on Amazon, ugh. (after this its off to get The Warhammer Giant... ugh).

It is true that in the case of the Lost and the Damned that it was a smaller print run then Slaves to Darkness. This is probably due to the fact Lost and the Damned came late in the run of 3rd Edition Warhammer right before the employee buyout of Games Workshop and the rapid move to 4th edition as a result.

That said? The Lost and the Damned might be my favored of the two books, perhaps because I don't have it in my collection?

Slaves and Darkness and the Lost an the Damned are designed to work together and full of the awesome stuff. I think the thing that I like the most about the second book are the various chaos conversions, particularly those representing daemons. Those pictures provided me with countless hours of inspiration. The art is likewise great and really captures the feel of the mid to late 1980s ethos of design and feel. The independent daemon based on a hand from the color pages (pictured to the right) has always been a favorite of mine and even inspired a on-again/off again scratch build of larger greater daemon...more on that in some future post if I ever get around to finishing it.

Like Slaves to Darkness it delves deep into two of the Chaos Powers- Nurgle, Lord of Plauge and Tzeentch the Master of Magic, their daemons, and their mortal followers. Like Slaves to Darkness it documents the path to power for the followers of those gods. For some reason the Gifts of Nurgle that a potential Chaos Champion can receive on his road to power or damnation always resonated with me. I especially like the Trail of Slime gift; highly impractical on the battlefield (what general is purposely having models(s) march across the trail?) but completely in keeping with the pathos of Nurgle -any model within 4" and directly behind the model risks catching Nurgles Rot. This is but one of the chaos gifts and the there si of course the large table of mutations.

Another great thing about these two books is that one can also use them for 40k, but even more than that is that they can be used for "spicing up" the Chaos Army in the 3rd Edition Warhammer Armies. This army represents a chaos "undivided" force and works well and has very good modeling opportunities as well which I'll be covering in a future blog post.

Still want more? Like Slaves to Darkness the book can also be used for 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It can't be stated enough these books are a masterwork and along with the rules, the Armies Book as well as the maligned Siege a very good set of rules, well not Siege...

I've spent a fair amount of time talking about Nurgle but what about Tzeentch? For some reason I have not been as drawn to Tzeentch as Nurgle, much like I'm drawn to Khorne over Slaanesh in Slaves to Darkness. For some reason the models just don't seem to resonate with me the same way they do with Nurgle. Maybe its the fun factor of the nurglings infesting Papa Nurgle?

For either Nurgle or Tzeentch I have a few minis to form the basis of the respective warbands but not enough (really no more than 1-3) to field anything substantive. My 3rd Edition Chaos warbands is a a Khorne themed one and I am assembling another smaller one of an undivided force in line with the rules for Chaos in the Warhammer Armies book. Obviously I can use these but I really want each force to be independent.

(A brief write up here: Eldritch Epistles Blog).

Should I actually get it it will then be a fair amount of minis off of eBay, but this isn't a bad thing, the idea of a Nurgle warband is one I really like. It also leads to one of the best parts of a Chaos Army: a war altar which only Dark Elves, Bretonnians, Chaos and Slann may have in 3rd Edition. Even with the web there really isn't that many examples of chaos war altars from 3rd edition Warhammer out there. The most well known is from White Dwarf 125.

 In the case of chaos war altars this really is the "grand daddy of them all". There really isn't that much else out there. I've attempted a scratch build of a chaos war altar that really turned out to be a wagon... which the rules say they are. But I'm not so sure I want something this elaborate.In any event a chaos war altar is on my long range of plans I'm just not sure when and what form it will take.

Final Note: war altars for 3rd Edition Warhammer are covered in a blog here including myDark Elf War altar which has since been completed.